Two years into my first manager role, I had to fire someone for the first time.
I'd avoided the conversation for four months. I told myself it was because I was being thorough. Documentation, performance plans, more documentation. The honest version: I was scared.
Scared of his reaction. Scared of my own. Scared of being the kind of person who fires people, because in my head I had not yet caught up with the fact that I was a manager and managers, sometimes, fire people.
The conversation took eleven minutes. He was not surprised. He had been expecting it for weeks. That hurt the most — that I had imagined I was protecting him by waiting, when actually I was making it worse.
The day after the firing, I felt nothing. The week after, I felt everything. Guilt, mostly. Guilt that I'd waited too long. Guilt that I'd believed my own story about being thorough.
What I learned:
- The kindest version of management is the one where the conversation happens early. Not when you have airtight documentation. When the gap between what's expected and what's happening is becoming structural. - "I'm being thorough" is sometimes "I'm being scared." It's worth catching that. - Your first hard conversation is the most expensive. They get faster — not easier, faster.
I still think about him sometimes. He's at a different company now, doing well. I'm glad.